Out of His League: A Hotwife Novel Read online

  Copyright © 2017 Max Sebastian and Kenny Wright

  All rights reserved.

  Cover image © prometeus | bigstockphoto.com

  First digital edition electronically published January 2017

  This is a work of fiction, any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, or events, organizations or locations, is purely coincidental. Reproduction in whole or in part of this publication without written consent is strictly prohibited, other than limited quotes for purposes of review.

  The authors greatly appreciate you taking the time to read this story. Please consider leaving a review wherever you bought this book, or sharing your experience via social media, to help us spread the word. Thank you for supporting this work.

  Contents

  Foreword

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Epilogue

  Afterword

  About the Authors

  Also by Max Sebastian

  Also by Kenny Wright

  Get your free Max Sebastian ebook...

  Foreword by Kenny Wright

  I wrote the first chapter of this book a long time ago. It’s not a terribly original idea. In fact, one could say it’s a core theme in the world of hotwifing—man is insecure because he’s got an attractive wife, and as a defense mechanism, that insecurity breeds this fantasy. I just turned up the volume a little.

  Trouble was, I didn’t know where to go next. I didn’t even know what kind of story I wanted to write. I tried a few things, but I couldn’t see a thread emerge that I was interested in following.

  Fast forward a couple years. Max and I were talking about a collaboration, kicking around a few ideas. We’d never done one, but I’ve always thought our styles would work well together. I pulled this one out of the filing cabinet (virtual, via Google Docs, let’s not get the wrong idea about me!), dusted it off, and sent it on over to Max. He did what he does so well, and like that, the book you hold in your hands was borne.

  It’s not the book that would have grown out of the chapter if I’d done it myself. It’s a stronger, more nuanced one. It went places that I didn’t expect, and I think Max and I surprised ourselves at how neatly it wrapped up in the end. As always, it’s a pleasure to work with someone of Max Sebastian’s calibre, and I look forward to doing it again!

  Kenny Wright

  January 13, 2017

  Out of His League

  By Max Sebastian

  &

  Kenny Wright

  HotwifeBooks.com

  KW

  PUBLISHING

  Chapter 1

  I remember the first time I met him. You don’t forget a thing like that—not a moment, not a single damn detail—although at the time I didn’t know that everything was about to change. It was late afternoon in late summer, and I was picking Courtney up from work.

  Thinking back on it now, I can still remember the smell of that waiting room—an odd mixture of disinfectant and magazines. I remember how crowded it had been, the silence punctuated by a cough or the creak of someone’s chair as they each waited to be called. I remember thinking that there was no way she’d be getting to everyone by five.

  The door that led into the patients’ rooms opened and a large football player of a man stepped out, grinning. He wore his arm in a sling, but didn’t seem bothered by it.

  “You were right, man,” he said to the guy sitting beside me. The big man drew closer, his smile going even wider. “She’s totally hot.”

  I shifted in my chair, my stomach starting to squirm. My ears felt kissed by fire.

  The guy beside me said, “There’s a reason she’s recommended so highly, and it’s not just because she’s the best sports doc around.”

  The guys shared a high-five handshake, the kind that always made me think of arm wrestling. “Take care, brotha. See you ‘round.”

  When the big guy left, I chanced a look around the room. The two hadn’t been quiet, and I spotted more than a few smiles on the faces of the waiting patients. My stomach squirmed even more. I tasted the bite of jealousy, the hopelessness of insecurity, and, as always, the dizziness of arousal. After four years of marriage, and three years dating prior to that, I would have thought I’d get past this. Not so.

  The guy beside me—good looking in a stocky way—chuckled when he saw me looking his way. “First time here?” he asked.

  “Nah,” I said.

  “So you know what I’m talking about.”

  I did, but I played dumb. “Dr. Haute?”

  “Yeah, Dr. Hot,” he said with a laugh, mispronouncing my last name on purpose.

  I’d been here before, in the awkward situation where guys drooled over my wife when they didn’t realize I was her husband. Sometimes I clued them in, but most of the time I just felt embarrassed—for them, for me, for Courtney. Guys like this were pretty harmless. They had no chance—not back when Courtney was single, and certainly not now. They were all bluster, and Courtney didn’t tolerate cocky bullshit. Being as beautiful as she was, she’d developed a toolkit for dealing with them. They still made me squirm, though, but they were nothing like the quieter guys—the ones who made their attraction known with furtive glances and secret smiles. Those guys made me feel like drowning.

  The door that the big guy had emerged from opened again, and there she was. I looked up at her, seeing her as everyone else in the waiting room did—as Dr. Hot.

  There’s no way to say this without overstating it, but Courtney was beautiful. Like, head-turning, jaw-droppingly beautiful. With her paper white—lightly freckled—skin, her dark hair, light blue eyes, and the soft, symmetrical lines of her face, she could have graced the covers of fashion magazines if she’d wanted to. Her mother had, back when she was young, and yet Courtney puts her mother to shame. Even standing up there, her sable hair in a messy bun, a white coat over a slim, blue dress, a stethoscope draped around her neck, my wife commanded everyone’s attention.

  I quickly glanced around to confirm. There were the open stares and the furtive looks, making me all queasy inside.

  Courtney spotted me, her face lighting up in a smile that faded just as quickly. She crossed the room, her brow already crumpled in apology, and tucked a strand of hair that had escaped her bun back behind her ear. “I’m sorry, John, but I’m going to be a little late.”

  I felt the eyes of the guy beside me stare in wonder. I could practically hear his thoughts: you’re married to Dr. Hot? No fucking way!

  I did my best to ignore that sensation and answered my wife. “I can see that. Want me to come back and get you?”

  I stood. She shook her head. “Don’t worry about it. I can take a cab.”

  “You know how long? I can always postpone,” I said. I felt like I was on a stage with every man watching.

  She said, “No, don’t do that. Go, have some fun with Charlie. I’ll join you when I can.”

  “Will do.”

  We kissed—a soft, familiar, and public kiss. If she felt at all self-conscious about our audience, she didn’t show it. My guess was that she barely even noticed them.

  “See you later,” she said.

  I was almost at the door when I heard her call the next guy from her clipboard. “Henry Richards.”

  “It’s Harry, actually.” I could hear the smile in his reply—t
he familiarity. It was enough that I turned to look back at him just as I exited.

  He looked about our age—around thirty—although there were flecks of gray in his shortly buzzed hair. With his clean shaven face, if this guy wasn’t military now, then he probably was a month ago. But it was the way Courtney looked at him, surprise plain on her face, that haunted me as I made my way out to Urbana. She knew him, hadn’t seen him in a long time, and was happy to see him now.

  The door shut, but I could still see them through the glass panes. He rose to his tall, strapping height, and they met in the middle of the room, sharing a hug. He winced, grabbing his shoulder. They spoke, then moved toward the back, toward the privacy of those small patient rooms.

  I left.

  Okay, so I’ve got a jealous side. It’s a byproduct of being married to someone that everyone else has the hots for. I’d learned to deal with it over the years, but it still reared its ugly head from time to time. It definitely hit me head-on as I left her office and got into my car. Who was Harry Richards? Courtney had never mentioned a Harry Richards, although I suppose that didn’t mean much. She’d had a whole life before she met me, and Courtney was the outgoing type who had plenty of friends.

  Or were they more than friends? I considered Harry’s lean body and broad shoulders. He was tall, I recalled, standing almost a head above Courtney, who is already a tall woman. She liked that, I knew. Liked that enough to date at one point?

  The jealousy twisted me up inside, tangling with something even more disturbing: arousal. My pulse quickened. I felt heat build beneath my collar and crawl up my neck as I considered the past, as I saw in my mind Courtney and Harry—

  “No,” I said aloud. “Don’t.”

  I looked around. I’d arrived at Urbana on auto-pilot, and occupied my thoughts the next few minutes searching for a spot to park on the street.

  We were supposed to be meeting a friend of ours, Charlie, who’d recently started a new job. As always, Charlie wanted to downplay it, but I convinced him to meet me for drinks with a couple other friends.

  I found a spot a couple blocks away, then found Charlie staking out a table on the sidewalk patio, a drink already in front of him.

  He stood as he saw me approaching, opening his arms wide for a big bear hug. And that’s exactly what it was. Charlie wasn’t a small guy, and when he gave out hugs, they were all consuming. “Where’s the wife?” he asked. “Don’t tell me, she finally wised up and realized she married beneath her?”

  “Don’t, man,” I said, harsher than I’d intended. “Not tonight.”

  Charlie grew serious. “Something happen? You want to talk?”

  I glanced at my friend, who regarded me with concern. We’d met years ago when he was my shrink and I was dealing with my early insecurities around dating Courtney. He’d helped me through that time, helped me realize that it was more about me than her. Mostly I understood that, but I also became better at hiding it.

  “No, nothing happened.” Nothing had. I was being silly. “Just... long day. Courtney’s going to be a little late. She’s still got a room full of patients waiting.”

  Charlie would normally make some joke about guys lining up for her, but sensing my mood, he held his tongue. “That’s too bad. Well, we’ll have to drink for her, eh? Liz is on her way, too.”

  “Cool.”

  So we drank. We ordered appetizers. We talked about his new job overseeing the mental health of returning vets. And I thought about where Courtney was now, what she was doing. I thought about her disappearing into the back with... Harry. About the way she’d smiled at him. About how easy it would have been for the guy to lift her onto an examination table, paper crinkling under them, as their lips mashed and their hands wandered and—

  “Buddy?” Charlie broke me out of my downward spiral.

  “Sorry. We should probably order some more food. What time is it?” I looked at my phone. Nearly seven and Courtney still wasn’t here—and still hadn’t called. When I looked up at Charlie, though, he wasn’t buying it. I said, “Stop looking at me like that.”

  “And how do you think I’m looking at you?”

  “Like you’re my shrink. I stopped paying you years ago.”

  Charlie looked mournful. “Don’t cheapen what we have, Johnny boy. But seriously, what’s on your mind?”

  Just then, a sleek, black BMW pulled into an open spot on the opposite side of the road. We watched the driver parallel park. When he stepped out from behind the tinted windows, though, my stomach fell. He wore sunglasses, mirrored aviators over his cut jaw, but I knew who he was—Harry, my new nemesis—and I knew who he was with.

  Courtney stepped out on the other side of the car. Her white doctor’s coat was gone, leaving her in just the blue dress I’d seen beneath. Like everything that Courtney wore, it was sexy in a crisp, refined way. It was tight along her slender form, but reached her knees and buttoned high around her neck. Her arms were bare, slim like the rest of her, toned from good genes and her gym routine.

  Her dark hair was loose now, falling in waves around her shoulders. She circled the BMW, her hips telling a flirty story to anyone who was watching. And when Harry put his hand on the small of her back as they crossed the road, Charlie cleared his throat and leaned in.

  “Ah,” he said. “Now I see what’s on your mind.”

  Chapter 2

  I’d like to tell you I’m a very self-assured, confident man. I’d like to tell you I had absolute trust in my wife, even if she was a lot of men’s idea of a bedroom fantasy. I’d like to tell you our love was so strong, so complete in every way, that there was no way I could entertain the possibility that she might ever even consider straying from the path our wedding vows directed.

  I’d like to tell you I had no reason to be paranoid, to wake up in the middle of the night with my skin clammy and cold, fearing the name of Harry Richards.

  “Hey, honey. You’re turning into my own personal chauffeur.”

  “You know how it is... I was in the neighborhood.”

  The truth is, Courtney is flirty with most men, that’s just the way she is. But I’d never seen her like I’d seen her like she was being in the few brief moments I’d seen her with Harry Richards. It terrified me to the core—it wasn’t just that I thought he might one day tempt her into something, a little inadvisable moment of physical weakness; the sight of them together had made me feel a total loss of control in my life. She was doing something I wasn’t comfortable with, seeing someone I wasn’t comfortable with her seeing, and I had no way of doing anything about it. Because really, I had zero right to tell her who she could and could not see. Especially professionally.

  “Well I can’t say I don’t enjoy the company on the way home!”

  I started turning up at Courtney’s Sports Injury Clinic and Rehab Center a few evenings a week after that brief run-in with Harry Richards. I had the big excuse that the property I was developing at that moment just happened to be a ten minutes drive from her office, but that had happened before and I hadn’t suddenly turned into the World’s Most Attentive Husband overnight. I’d even go on the days the Center runs a public clinic, opening its doors to whoever was happening by—by which I mean the guys who can’t afford the usual exclusive rates. Those days always saw Courtney running particularly late, since she was one of the few partners in the Center who felt the need to see everyone who turned up in her waiting room, rather than closing the doors on poor high school or college athletes in desperate need. That first time I’d seen her with Harry Richards had been a public clinic day.

  “There’s a new Italian restaurant over in the Grove District, how about we give it a try?”

  “Oooh, I love Italian food...”

  I got away with it. She didn’t look at me as though I was some kind of stalker. Each time I arrived and her receptionist Shawna either waved me through to her office, Courtney would look up from her desk with delight sparkling in those cool blue eyes, genuinely pleased to see me.
>
  It did settle my nerves, I can tell you. As did attending her office all that time without seeing neither hide nor hair of Harry Richards.

  I should have just let it go, taken my anxiety down a notch. Trust is an important thing in a relationship, but you can’t keep trying to test it in your partner, you’ve got to have faith, too. Courtney would have appreciated the occasional drop-in by her darling husband just as much as she did the few days a week I was regularly turning up. Perhaps more so, because it would have been unexpected, special.

  But when I’m working on a house, flipping it from a grim mess of uneven floors, fading wallpaper and damp, crumbling walls into a gorgeous temple to modern style and comfort, I spend a lot of time on my own, working away in silence during the periods where I don’t have contractors around performing the more specialized work. I have plenty of time to think. And after Harry Richards turned up in my wife’s clinic, I had plenty of time to think about every nuance of that particular arrival.

  The thing was, if I was just your average jealous husband, I probably would have picked up my wife regularly from work for a little while, and seeing no signs of Harry Richards in her life, I would have eventually just let it go. I mean, it’s not as though I had any grounds to hire a private detective to tail her. Yet I was not just your average jealous husband. Sure, the jealousy was there, and the hopeless sense of insecurity. But also, ever present ticking along underneath it all, there was that dizzy arousal, that throbbing excitement—some kind of weird optimism that my wife might actually be thinking about having an affair.

  I don’t think I could have explained it at the time. As I recognized it in myself—seeing how disappointed I was when I turned up at Courtney’s clinic again to find no Harry Richards there with his shoulder in a sling—I was deeply confused about it, even humiliated by how I felt. I was arriving at her office hoping that he’d be in there. Jesus.